This invention relates generally to network access to for expert referral. More particularly the present invention provides a system and method for obtaining assistance via network notification to experts and subsequent expert-to- customer contact.
As computers and software proliferate, the need for help desk assistance becomes more and more critical especially to those customers who are not technically sophisticated. The difficulty is that individual customers become frustrated when they must sit on a help line for many hours before they get human assistance or, equally frustrating, are shunted to a frequently asked question screen, which has the answers to many questions that are not helpful for the particular problem that the individual customer is experiencing.
The present invention seeks to solve these problems by qualifying and establishing a large number of experts in various hardware and software fields. For example, the present invention will solicit and store qualifications for experts in Microsoft Windows, Sun products, Apple products, and indeed, many other hardware and software products. These experts, most of whom will be independent contractors, will be directly accessible via the database of the present invention.
After registration with the system of the present invention and providing customer contact information such as telephone number and email, when a customer needs particular assistance with a particular product, the customer will access the website of the present invention and state the problem being experienced. Once a query for help is made, the system of the present invention sends a pager or other notification signal to an appropriate expert who can handle the problem being experienced by the customer. Indeed, a call may go out to multiple experts all of whom have the option to respond to the particular request. Contact information is also presented to the experts in this first communication.
Whichever expert responds first to the request, that expert will have the contact information to immediately contact the customer experiencing the problem. In this fashion, one of the key problem areas, that is time of responding to a problem, is minimized.
The expert can then respond either via email through the server of the present invention to the customer or via internet telephone through the server of the present invention to the customer. In either case response goes through the server of the present invention in order to be able to track such statistics as response time, and whether the customer was satisfied or dissatisfied with the response of the particular expert.
In responding to the customer, several modes of communication can take place. As noted above, email between the customer and the expert can occur. However, in those cases where a more consistent contact is required during troubleshooting, the system provides for a real time xe2x80x9cchatxe2x80x9d session to take place whereby an ongoing conversation via a typical chat window is established. In the event that even more contact is required, a video conferencing link may also be established by the server of the present invention to allow troubleshooting to occur in a more visual fashion. Yet another route which may be established is internet telephony between expert and customer. All of these methods are within the scope of the present invention and are designed to solve the problem being encountered by the customer quickly and efficiently
Once the problem is solved, the customer who experienced the problem is given the option of responding to a questionnaire simply asking if the problem was solved, if the expert was responsive to the question, and several other key questions that will assist the system of the present invention in evaluating the performance of the expert.
Statistics will be kept on the performance of experts involved in the system. For those experts who continually rank highly, calls for assistance will continue to go to those experts on a priority basis. For those experts who are not as successful, they will fall lower in the priority list and will not receive as many calls for assistance from the system.
The present invention is is adaptive. If an expert who is lower on the priority list continues to get high grades from customers for accomplishing tasks, that expert can climb in the rankings and achieve a priority ranking thereby receiving more request for assistance and hence, more revenue from responding to customers needs. Conversely, those experts who do not receive favorable rankings from customers will fall in the overall rankings of experts and will not receive as many phone calls for assistance an hence, will not receive as much revenue from the present invention.
All transactions, in the preferred embodiment occur via the internet, although this not meant as a limitation, whether they be by email, or internet telephone. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that communication between customer and expert can also occur via telephone as well. And all transactions will proceed through the server of the present invention so that activities of experts and statistics on types and frequencies of certain troubled calls can be monitored.
In summary what is created is a virtual help desk, having experts in many different areas of expertise immediately and competently responding to the queries for help from customers who are in need.